Its actually really good system in theory, esp upto the 200's. It forces regs to play each other and means people cant bum-hunt above their level.
Good aspiring regs have clear entry goals that they can meet to get in.
Its bad for bad regs and any non professional regular as its hard to break into the divisions without skill and time.
The politics are ugly tho. The 100's recently kicked a well known coach as his stundents were killing the members. And 200' above are closed shops without any clear entry requirements. Yoy have to force people to share by targetting some of the best in the world and making it unprofitable enough for them to be forced share. And they are very difficult to crush to the extent that it eats into their bankrolls, even making them pay the rake would be a huge achievement.
With regard to cezar, he declined me straight away, I would love him to sit me . He is a prime example of a bad reg who hides in the sharky queue. People would rather wait in line than play him, he hates being sat as he thinks he is entitled to play only bad players. Crazy politics innit
Its a vast improvement on the behaviour that preceeded it where people bumhunted the levels and got stroppy if anyone semi-decent sat them. You had people who couldnt beat $30 regs printing money at the $100 level.
Now if you want to play recreationals you have to prove yourself against the best regs at that level and also be willing to sit any reg that wants to move up and be willing to battle them.
Regs actually battle each other now, and the level they play at is a reflection of their skill level. It is a terrible system for bumhunters.
Stars have stated that it is none of their business who plays who. If you dont like being sat by players you cant beat either stop open sitting or move down a few levels. If you dont like queues then dont queue and sit whichever reg is open sitting. Its great for stars as reg on reg violence generates tonnes of rake and money leaves regs bankroll and flows to the site.
The politics of the higher levels where entry is near impossible without contacts or the ability and bankroll to crush the best for weeks on end is much shadier, but again it doesnt interest stars unless recreationals are put out. They dont notice anything except games firing off quicker.
In many ways its the natural equilibrium of the lobby system and much better than cash hu where no regs ever play each other and can and do decline action.
Its a bad system for me as I would almost certainly be a bad reg at the $30s and that is the next level up for me. I couldnt bumhunt the level without being the bum that was hunted. Thats actually not a bad thing for the game. If I did gain entry to the 30's I could not simply bumhunt as I would have to defend the lobby against anyone else moving up and if I was one of the weaker members would be targetted by people battling to get in. I would constantly have to prove myself. Again that has to ve a good thing for the game.
Crikey. Honestly, I dont know what to say, I'm utterly astounded at the whole thing.
Not sure anything I have ever seen or read in poker has quite shocked me to that extent, & I suddenly feel terribly old & out of the loop.
When 'Stars first started, I played SNG's there, starting at $10, then $20, then $50 which was the biggest they ran at the time. Then they started running $100, $200 & $500, & I played them all for a while, & won a tidy sum, $27,000, which was my first big "poker 'roll". Which I then promptly lost, as the games started to get tougher.
I sort of lost touch with all that stuff in around 2005, when I first began to work with recreational players in APAT & elsewhere, then, in 2006, I came to Sky Poker, & again, everything I do there is sort of based on recreationals, who, to me, are the backbone & foundation of poker.
I sort of shudder at all that "reg wars" stuff on 'Stars, & the Chaddick story. I've met Chadwick several times, he seems a decent bloke, & for the record, I have no gripe with him at all. It just blows me away, all the staking, & politics of who can play who.
I'm going to borrow some of the stuff you have written, & post it elsewhere if you don't mind (I'll credit you), as I'm just blown away by it.
Sorry to derail things a bit, but I have another question for Teddy, seeing as he seems to have his finger on the pulse of these matters.
You will have heard that Gus Hansen & Viktor Blom have both just parted company with Full Tilt.
I saw something by my good friend Barry Carter on Poker Strategy in which he stated that Hansen has lost $17,000,000 (SEVENTEEN MILLY) on Full Tilt since they re-opened in 2012.
I thought "that must be wrong, its just not possible", so I queried it with people in the know, & in fact it is true, it can be proven by readily available site stats, which I have now seen. In fact his total losses seem to be north of $25 million.
What?
How on earth did Full Tilt ever think that was good "Message" for their site, to employ a pro who is $25 milly in the poker hole? What Message does that send?
Looking back now, I can't help but think that the whole Full Tilt debacle was not confined to Ferguson, Lederer & Bitar. How could it be possible that the likes of Hansen & Ivey, who, between them were being paid more than a milly per MONTH, were not aware of what was going off?
And Gus is a "hero" to so many young players. Really?
Sheesh. I'm glad I'm just small-ball player these days, I simply don't recognize a world where all that stuff is going off.
Soon, more & more poker sites will move more towards looking after Recreational players, instead of paying folks to lose untold millions. It beggars belief.
With regard to cezar, he declined me straight away, I would love him to sit me . He is a prime example of a bad reg who hides in the sharky queue. People would rather wait in line than play him, he hates being sat as he thinks he is entitled to play only bad players. Crazy politics innit Posted by TeddyBloat
He feels he has an ENTITLEMENT to only play bad players?
I can but wonder what sort of person he is in real life.
Very interesting derail. I've heard of these kinds of things happening before but never looked into more depth.
Anyway back onto topic. If a player is sat out at 1 table, then he is automatically sat out of all his other games. Would also be good as during rake races where people over extend themselves and slow the games down, the regs would think better and close down a few tables, hence making it a better playing experience for everyone.
Very interesting derail. I've heard of these kinds of things happening before but never looked into more depth. Anyway back onto topic. If a player is sat out at 1 table, then he is automatically sat out of all his other games. Would also be good as during rake races where people over extend themselves and slow the games down, the regs would think better and close down a few tables, hence making it a better playing experience for everyone. Posted by scotty77
+1
Regs do kill the games during rake races.
Rec's in the chatbox typing ZZZZzzzzzz then leaving far too often.
instead of paying folks to lose untold millions. It beggars belief. Best regards, Out of touch old fogey. Posted by Tikay10
Ok so it's on a smaller scale, which makes sense as FT/** are a lot bigger than Sky, but isn't this just what Sky do when they let the presenters loose on the cash tables during the show?
Thanks to Teddy for those posts, really interesting lunchtime reading, I never realised that the upper echelons of the game had become so shady. Would seem only a matter of time before things implode if there isn't a major change to what's going on up there?
And the noted on recs 'zzzzz' comments - didn't we have a thread on here (started by an infrequent poster) a couple of months ago asking whether Sky could reduce the decision clock on hands to speed things up... which would address this issue, but which got roundly slated as an idea by the majority of posters to the thread!
In Response to Re: Sorting out sitting out...... : Ok so it's on a smaller scale, which makes sense as FT/** are a lot bigger than Sky, but isn't this just what Sky do when they let the presenters loose on the cash tables during the show? Thanks to Teddy for those posts, really interesting lunchtime reading, I never realised that the upper echelons of the game had become so shady. Would seem only a matter of time before things implode if there isn't a major change to what's going on up there? And the noted on recs 'zzzzz' comments - didn't we have a thread on here (started by an infrequent poster) a couple of months ago asking whether Sky could reduce the decision clock on hands to speed things up... which would address this issue, but which got roundly slated as an idea by the majority of posters to the thread! Posted by shakinaces
Ah yes, I remember it fondly. This is the guy who thought that he was being accused of being unable to count, despite the joke firmly being laid at Slipwater's door. He went off on one, and hasn't been seen since!
I said at the time that I thought a couple of 'speed' tables might be a good shout, but it kinda got lost amongst his sense of humour bypass
In Response to Re: Sorting out sitting out...... : Ok so it's on a smaller scale, which makes sense as FT/** are a lot bigger than Sky, but isn't this just what Sky do when they let the presenters loose on the cash tables during the show? Thanks to Teddy for those posts, really interesting lunchtime reading, I never realised that the upper echelons of the game had become so shady. Would seem only a matter of time before things implode if there isn't a major change to what's going on up there? And the noted on recs 'zzzzz' comments - didn't we have a thread on here (started by an infrequent poster) a couple of months ago asking whether Sky could reduce the decision clock on hands to speed things up... which would address this issue, but which got roundly slated as an idea by the majority of posters to the thread! Posted by shakinaces
Tikay, the whole black friday and isuldur1era is before I had any real interest in poker so I cant offer any informed opinion on gus and bloms losses other than to say they are incredible in the sense that they are barely believable.
The whole isuldur rise and fall however is a wonderful story. Id advise anyone remotely interested to search out a thread on 2+2 that collated the relevant posts from the november 09 high stakes rail thread (or whatever month he burst onto the scene). Don t think anyone will ever shake up the scene like he did back then; don't think there will ever be that scene to shake up either.
There a lot more stuff I could post about husng politics, when colman said it was a dark game in his one drop statement he got a lot of stick, but he speaks as someone who sits atop a greasy pole right at the apex of all this shadiness. And hes done some incredibly shady and downright immoral things in getting there.
I said yesterday that I intended to "steal" your piece & Post it elsewhere, as I was so amazed by it all.
I did exactly that, & said you had written it, using your alias "Teddy Bloat".
It is a Forum largely populated by extremely experienced poker players, many of whom are very successful, with multiple WSOP Bracelet winners, EPT winners, & Online "monsters" such as Patrick Leonard, Rick Trigg, Chris Brammer etc amongst them.
It generated a lot of replies, & almost without exception, the respondents were equally surprised by the whole thing.
Two media guys, Barry Carter & Alun Bowden, both senior poker media names, were also shocked by it all. Quite a story yoiu gave us there.
One guy WAS familiar with the scene, his nanme is Dan Morgan, & he is - or was - a long-time Heads Up Pro on 'Stars. In fact, he says he actually set up one of these "cartels". I believe him, as I know him well, & personally, over many years, & have purchased a piece of his WSOP HU action in past years.
I will C & P his reply here shortly, you & others may find it interesting.
"Yeah if anyone wants to know anything about how the cartels/divisions work fire away, I set up the one for $100 turbos with a few others
A lot of the problems that the hypers cartels had with backers being in, some of their horses being out and the handbags/politics that comes along with it because hardly anyone in our group is staked.
These groups forming are just a natural evolution of the game with sharkystrator coming along. When you had to manual reg lobbies the big time bumhunters knew that they had no shot to get a lobby so there wasn't really a problem, but with the introduction of this software anyone that bought it could have it watch a lobby and sit when it opened up, which caused a stream of players to start joining the sharky queue knowing that they'd be able to grab the lobby for a little while and maybe get a game against a recreational player at a much higher stake than they'd be able to open sit.
The bumhunters getting games against recs takes money out of the pockets of the players that are good enough to play that stake (we can debate whether the idea of the best players being more 'deserving' of the games against recs all day, but most would agree with poker being a meritocracy) and the only way to fight it was to team up and sit these guys as soon as they get a lobby. The sharky queue was getting up to 12 or more people meaning you were waiting over an hour between games and that obviously isn't sustainable. At first there were obviously a lot of complaints from the players that were no longer able to maintain a good hourly by playing -10% ROI players all day.
It really shook things up, made regs look at each other and say 'do I really want to share lobbies with this guy?'
Some very well established regs that had great records from years ago but had fallen behind the curve got burned and tumbled down the stakes. Some people that were good and were moving up got stung in that they now had to play a lot more games against regs than they would otherwise have done to be able to open sit higher stakes.
The mechanics from the inside are we have a list of players that are not in the group but that are trying to sit the lobbies. All group members are obliged to sit these players whenever they get a lobby. Anyone shirking their responsibilities and trying to freeroll the rest of the group by not battling vs the sit list players gets kicked. The difference between the 1ks vs Coleman and most of the other groups is that you don't actually have to take a chunk of money from the group to get in, you just have to make it not worth our while to play you, so you have to beat the group over a decent sample for more than the rake. Players that are clearly stronger than some of the weaker group members get in much faster, but the reality of the poker economy is that these requirements will have to be tightened as the pool of recs slowly dries up.
The introduction of Spin n Gos on stars is the final nail in the coffin for HUSNGs imo especially regspeeds and turbos which have been in terminal decline since the introduction of heads up hypers. I actually quit heads up sngs to concentrate on learning PLO a couple of months ago."
On topic, I think it is probable that people sit-out accidently more on sky than the other major sites.
My reason for thinking this is, other sites have tables pop up and sky don't. If you have sky on front, it pops up, but I like many others play many sites. so what happens is, I play all the other sites without noticing that sky has timed out.
Yeah there are turbo divisions on stars and ftp, its not just a stars hyper phenomena.
With regard to spin ansd goes they have hurt hyper traffic and the 30's division has only just come about in response to the reduced rec traffic at that level making the wait times unacceptable to the better regs. I cant see hypers dying off though, traffic has stabalised and games are firing off quickly at low stakes.
The formation of the 30's has been bumpy. Some members have been hiding at the 15s and not defending lobbies, some of the players not in have been seen complaining about being sat and stating that only want to play recreationals, asking to be left alone. Some players where put in without being asked and have been targetted by players on the outside wanting in. Some formed a counter division to battle the established one. Really zany politics atm.
Thanks for that Yeah there are turbo divisions on stars and ftp, its not just a stars hyper phenomena. With regard to spin ansd goes they have hurt hyper traffic and the 30's division has only just come about in response to the reduced rec traffic at that level making the wait times unacceptable to the better regs. I cant see hypers dying off though, traffic has stabalised and games are firing off quickly at low stakes. The formation of the 30's has been bumpy. Some members have been hiding at the 15s and not defending lobbies, some of the players not in have been seen complaining about being sat and stating that only want to play recreationals, asking to be left alone. Some players where put in without being asked and have been targetted by players on the outside wanting in. Some formed a counter division to battle the established one. Really zany politics atm. Posted by TeddyBloat
The sheer arrogance & misplaced sense of entitlement of that is mind-blowing.
Some of these guys need a little life balance in the real world, to se how life really is.
Comments
Teddy, firstly, I really appreciate all this background info, thank you.
I also read every word of that link yoiu posted.....
http://www.husng.com/content/interview-richard-chadders0-chadwick-i-stopped-my-1k-shots
Crikey. Honestly, I dont know what to say, I'm utterly astounded at the whole thing.
Not sure anything I have ever seen or read in poker has quite shocked me to that extent, & I suddenly feel terribly old & out of the loop.
When 'Stars first started, I played SNG's there, starting at $10, then $20, then $50 which was the biggest they ran at the time. Then they started running $100, $200 & $500, & I played them all for a while, & won a tidy sum, $27,000, which was my first big "poker 'roll". Which I then promptly lost, as the games started to get tougher.
I sort of lost touch with all that stuff in around 2005, when I first began to work with recreational players in APAT & elsewhere, then, in 2006, I came to Sky Poker, & again, everything I do there is sort of based on recreationals, who, to me, are the backbone & foundation of poker.
I sort of shudder at all that "reg wars" stuff on 'Stars, & the Chaddick story. I've met Chadwick several times, he seems a decent bloke, & for the record, I have no gripe with him at all. It just blows me away, all the staking, & politics of who can play who.
I'm going to borrow some of the stuff you have written, & post it elsewhere if you don't mind (I'll credit you), as I'm just blown away by it.
Sorry to derail things a bit, but I have another question for Teddy, seeing as he seems to have his finger on the pulse of these matters.
You will have heard that Gus Hansen & Viktor Blom have both just parted company with Full Tilt.
I saw something by my good friend Barry Carter on Poker Strategy in which he stated that Hansen has lost $17,000,000 (SEVENTEEN MILLY) on Full Tilt since they re-opened in 2012.
I thought "that must be wrong, its just not possible", so I queried it with people in the know, & in fact it is true, it can be proven by readily available site stats, which I have now seen. In fact his total losses seem to be north of $25 million.
What?
How on earth did Full Tilt ever think that was good "Message" for their site, to employ a pro who is $25 milly in the poker hole? What Message does that send?
Looking back now, I can't help but think that the whole Full Tilt debacle was not confined to Ferguson, Lederer & Bitar. How could it be possible that the likes of Hansen & Ivey, who, between them were being paid more than a milly per MONTH, were not aware of what was going off?
And Gus is a "hero" to so many young players. Really?
Sheesh. I'm glad I'm just small-ball player these days, I simply don't recognize a world where all that stuff is going off.
Soon, more & more poker sites will move more towards looking after Recreational players, instead of paying folks to lose untold millions. It beggars belief.
Best regards,
Out of touch old fogey.
I can but wonder what sort of person he is in real life.
Regs do kill the games during rake races.
Rec's in the chatbox typing ZZZZzzzzzz then leaving far too often.
Thanks to Teddy for those posts, really interesting lunchtime reading, I never realised that the upper echelons of the game had become so shady. Would seem only a matter of time before things implode if there isn't a major change to what's going on up there?
And the noted on recs 'zzzzz' comments - didn't we have a thread on here (started by an infrequent poster) a couple of months ago asking whether Sky could reduce the decision clock on hands to speed things up... which would address this issue, but which got roundly slated as an idea by the majority of posters to the thread!
I said at the time that I thought a couple of 'speed' tables might be a good shout, but it kinda got lost amongst his sense of humour bypass
Fascinating posts by TeddyBloat on this thread!
Hi Teddy,
I'm finding this whole thing astonishing.
Incidentally, Hansen has lost $17 million on Full Tilt (fact, official) SINCE Tilt re-opened in 2012.
It beggars belief!
All the while, Tilt were using him as their "Face of Full Tilt".
You can barely make this stuff up.
Teddy,
I said yesterday that I intended to "steal" your piece & Post it elsewhere, as I was so amazed by it all.
I did exactly that, & said you had written it, using your alias "Teddy Bloat".
It is a Forum largely populated by extremely experienced poker players, many of whom are very successful, with multiple WSOP Bracelet winners, EPT winners, & Online "monsters" such as Patrick Leonard, Rick Trigg, Chris Brammer etc amongst them.
It generated a lot of replies, & almost without exception, the respondents were equally surprised by the whole thing.
Two media guys, Barry Carter & Alun Bowden, both senior poker media names, were also shocked by it all. Quite a story yoiu gave us there.
One guy WAS familiar with the scene, his nanme is Dan Morgan, & he is - or was - a long-time Heads Up Pro on 'Stars. In fact, he says he actually set up one of these "cartels". I believe him, as I know him well, & personally, over many years, & have purchased a piece of his WSOP HU action in past years.
I will C & P his reply here shortly, you & others may find it interesting.
This was the reply by Dan Morgan.
"Yeah if anyone wants to know anything about how the cartels/divisions work fire away, I set up the one for $100 turbos with a few others
A lot of the problems that the hypers cartels had with backers being in, some of their horses being out and the handbags/politics that comes along with it because hardly anyone in our group is staked.
These groups forming are just a natural evolution of the game with sharkystrator coming along. When you had to manual reg lobbies the big time bumhunters knew that they had no shot to get a lobby so there wasn't really a problem, but with the introduction of this software anyone that bought it could have it watch a lobby and sit when it opened up, which caused a stream of players to start joining the sharky queue knowing that they'd be able to grab the lobby for a little while and maybe get a game against a recreational player at a much higher stake than they'd be able to open sit.
The bumhunters getting games against recs takes money out of the pockets of the players that are good enough to play that stake (we can debate whether the idea of the best players being more 'deserving' of the games against recs all day, but most would agree with poker being a meritocracy) and the only way to fight it was to team up and sit these guys as soon as they get a lobby. The sharky queue was getting up to 12 or more people meaning you were waiting over an hour between games and that obviously isn't sustainable. At first there were obviously a lot of complaints from the players that were no longer able to maintain a good hourly by playing -10% ROI players all day.
It really shook things up, made regs look at each other and say 'do I really want to share lobbies with this guy?'
Some very well established regs that had great records from years ago but had fallen behind the curve got burned and tumbled down the stakes. Some people that were good and were moving up got stung in that they now had to play a lot more games against regs than they would otherwise have done to be able to open sit higher stakes.
The mechanics from the inside are we have a list of players that are not in the group but that are trying to sit the lobbies. All group members are obliged to sit these players whenever they get a lobby. Anyone shirking their responsibilities and trying to freeroll the rest of the group by not battling vs the sit list players gets kicked. The difference between the 1ks vs Coleman and most of the other groups is that you don't actually have to take a chunk of money from the group to get in, you just have to make it not worth our while to play you, so you have to beat the group over a decent sample for more than the rake. Players that are clearly stronger than some of the weaker group members get in much faster, but the reality of the poker economy is that these requirements will have to be tightened as the pool of recs slowly dries up.
The introduction of Spin n Gos on stars is the final nail in the coffin for HUSNGs imo especially regspeeds and turbos which have been in terminal decline since the introduction of heads up hypers. I actually quit heads up sngs to concentrate on learning PLO a couple of months ago."
My reason for thinking this is, other sites have tables pop up and sky don't. If you have sky on front, it pops up, but I like many others play many sites. so what happens is, I play all the other sites without noticing that sky has timed out.
Some of these guys need a little life balance in the real world, to se how life really is.